A sharp expletive from Theis interrupted Nevin's thoughts and drew him back to the present.

“Why do you keep cursing?” he called up to him, wiping the warm tears from his cheeks. The specter of Dalen faded into the shadows of his subconscious, but didn't vanish entirely.

“You should try it sometime.” He snapped a errant branch unlucky enough to cut across his path, breaking it in half again for good measure before dropping it to the side. “Be good practice.”

“What that supposed to mean?”

“Forget it,” the man in black grumbled. “Keep walking.”

Nevin rolled his eyes. Despite the man in black's harsh words on the overlook, Nevin found it hard to stay angry with him. What he lacked in tact and diplomacy, Theis made up for in bald-face honesty and logic. Things really could have been quite a bit worse for him, for Aidux. Maybe a measure of gratitude wasn't uncalled for, if nothing more than to keep his mind off of the horrors behind him.

Focus on what you can control.

“So, are you gonna tell me how you plan to get us out of here?”

“Didn't plan on it, no.”

“No? What do you mean, 'no'? What if you fall in a hole, or off a cliff, or the soldiers find us and you get killed in battle?” Theis actually chuckled at that, only serving to annoy Nevin further. “I'm serious! What if you get lost? I mean, it's pretty dark out here. You have to admit it's possible the three of us could get separated at some point tonight.”

“I'll admit to no such thing.”

“Then what about giving me a weapon? If we get in trouble again, I don't want to have to depend on you and Aidux to protect me.”

“You already have a weapon.”

Nevin looked down at himself in confusion. For some reason, his first thoughts went to the canteen hanging from his belt. “What are you talking about? I don't even have a belt knife.”

A soft sigh floated back along the breeze. “The Sharasil, or so you called it, is a weapon. I already told you that.”

“Okay, but...it's just a big club. I doubt it even weighs enough to do any real damage.”

When Theis didn't respond, Nevin grit his teeth. “How I am supposed to know you're even telling me the truth, and not just stringing me along so I'll mule this stupid thing around for you?” He smacked the weapon slung across his shoulder. While he expected to hear the clap of flesh on metal, the impact was deathly silent.

He finally caught a glimpse of the man's bright blue eyes as the warrior turned to glare back at him. “Where do think we're going, boy? Think I'd just walk off into the mountains if I didn't know exactly what I was doing?”

Theis snorted. “Idiot.”

Hot blood filled his cheeks. “Stop calling me 'boy.'”

Maybe that was a stupid question. Why else would the man march them into the northern wilds and away from the one known means of escaping the peninsula if he didn't have another passage in mind? He had already expressed his need to transport the object slung across Nevin's shoulders to some 'old woman' in Comelbough. Why head this direction if there wasn't another way through the Nimmons?

But then...what did he really know about Theis? Other than the stories, the legends of an unparalleled warrior traveling from province to province, challenging to martial combat any who would accept? No one knew where he came from, and until today, no one had known what happened to him. He was practically a ghost. Within the patchwork leather cloak, beneath the carved mahogany mask, the man could be anyone.

Then again...the man could be no one. The stories could just be stories. After all, Nevin hadn't seen him fight. Aidux had been the one to take down Vincht. It was entirely possible that the myths surrounding the legendary Theis Bane were nothing more than rumor and hot air.

“How do you know?”

“How do I know what?” Theis sounded annoyed, but Nevin couldn't tell if it was from him or whatever the man kept cursing at.

“How do you know there's another way off the peninsula? Is that where you've been hiding all these years? Or is it the way you came to Elbin from Comelbough? I just...” Nevin tossed his hands up. “I just want to know how you know.”

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“Not gonna shut up about it, are you, boy?” He kept walking, crunching innocent undergrowth beneath his boots and batting aside low-hanging branches. Nevin watched him, the outline of his black leather cloak fading into and out of existence like a blotch in his vision.

Theis finally sighed, grumbling to himself in a language Nevin had never heard before. He turned to face the boy and his cat, the motes in his eyes swirling with barely restrained agitation. “Stop here. Catch your breath while I look around.”

Nevin crossed his arms. “You're not gonna answer me, are you?”

Theis turned back to the trees. “Wait there,” he called over his shoulder before vanishing into the surrounding foliage.

Aidux sank onto his haunches, patting aside an overly friendly fern that had leaned in to tickle his whiskers. His stomach grumbled, loud enough for Nevin to hear over the screaming cicadas. The young man cracked a small smile and rubbed his friend's head. “Someone's hungry.”

The cat yowled quietly, clearly annoyed. “Don't even get me started on food. We've passed more rabbits in the last few hours than I've smelled all week.”

Nevin grinned, sliding his pack off his shoulder and stretching before plopping down in the dirt beside the cat. “I might have some jerky hidden away in here if you're really hungry.”

“Ewww...no. I'd rather starve. I'd rather eat skunk. I'd rather a snub-nosed feggrolin gnaw off each of my paws and then I'd rather eat the feggrolin.” He gagged. “Why? Why do you peoples do that to yourselves?”

He muffled a laugh with his hand. If he thought the cat would eat it, he'd offer him whatever food he had. Nevin himself hadn't had much of an appetite all day. Probably a symptom of all the stress he was dealing with.

“What do you think Theis' problem is? He seems really agitated.”

Aidux yawned. “I dunno. I'm kinda dealing with my own confusion right now.”

“Oh?” Dragging his pack along the ground with him, Nevin scooted back until he could recline up against a nearby tower pine. The long metal object bound to the top of the satchel prevented all access to the supplies within, but Nevin was in no mood to fiddle with it. Instead, he maneuvered the pack to his side and took a deep breath, resting the back of his head against the pine's scaly tree bark. “What's on your mind?”

The cat curled up beside him, resting his chin on Nevin's knee. “Well, do you remember that time I got in a fight with a badger, and you told me I smelled so bad you couldn't stand to be within thirty feet of me?”

“Gods, you were so ripe. I thought we were gonna have to shave you.”

“You weren't coming anywhere near me with a razor, I promise you that. Anyway, Ishen could smell it on you, so he gave you some soap and made you go take a bath in the creek behind his cabin. You cleaned me up too, but we just couldn't get rid of the smell. You said that, after a few minutes of being around me, you didn't notice it anymore, but for the next few days, every time you went away and came back, you could always smell it again. And then, after a few minutes, you'd forget about it again. It was almost like, if you spent enough time around me, your nose could forget that smell.”

Nevin cocked an eyebrow, unsure where the cat was going with this. “That sounds about right. What of it?”

“Well, cat's don't work like that. If it's there to be smelled, I smell it. And I keep smelling it until it goes away. It might get weaker, but I always know it's there. My nose never forgets, not once it gets hold of a smell. So while you stopped smelling it after a few minutes, it kept bothering me, and it bothered me for weeks.”

“That sounds...really annoying.”

“Oh, soooo really.” The lynx paused, considering the next bit carefully. “I think...I think I'm smelling something and forgetting about it and then remembering it. And then forgetting. Again.”

“You just said it doesn't work that way for cats.”

“It shouldn't. But I keep smelling the exact same smell, over and over and over again, since the sun set. It keeps going away and popping back up and going away again.”

“Why is that weird? There's lots of the same things spread out all over the forest.”

“No, that's not what I'm saying. Not the same things, Nevin. The exact same thing, over and over and over and over...”

That got the hairs on his neck to stand on end. “Like....something's following us?” He leaned forward, cautiously taking in darkness around them, but all was still.

Aidux shook his head. “No, it always starts in front of us and then we pass it. Like we're going in circles, but we're not. I'm sure of it. Us cats know our directions, and I'd definitely know if we were going in circles. And we aren't, because we've been heading north all day. You can't go in circles if you're heading in the same direction!”

The inky form of Theis trudged out of the trees, grumbling quietly to himself as he approached. “Cat's right. Think we're going in circles.”

Aidux huffed, coming to his feet. “Wait, no, I'm not right. I said we can't be going in circles. I've never been so not right!”

Theis shrugged. “Don't understand it either, but we aren't making any progress toward the mountains. Haven't been for over an hour now.

“And this one,” he began, pointing a gloved finger toward Nevin. “Needs some real rest. Not just a break. Spent most of the night breathing so hard he's bound to wake the rocks.”

Nevin scowled. “I haven't eaten, and we've been walking almost non-stop since this afternoon. Not to mention I'm the only one carrying a pack and a huge chunk of metal.” He gestured to the man in black. “How do you even plan to survive out here? You've got no supplies.”

Theis shot him a pointed look, but didn't respond.

Aidux bumped him with his shoulder. “He's right, Nevin. Not about the circles though. We're both wrong about that. Him more than me. But you do need to rest. How's your head feeling?”

He shrugged, lightly rubbing the tender spot on his skull. Dried blood peeled off in flakes, and he could feel a rough scab had formed over the wound. To his surprise, the lingering pain had all but vanished and the area wasn't even tender to the touch. “Good enough, I guess.”

“Get some sleep, both of you,” Theis vanished back into the darkness as he spoke, his fading words slowly consumed by the incessant murmur of cicadas. “Be back to wake you before first light.”

Nevin shifted his pack behind him, propping it up on the tree trunk and sliding down into the foliage until he could rest his head on the soft leather. Despite his exhaustion, he didn't imagine sleep would come either quick or easy. He closed his eyes and reached out a hand to ruffle Aidux's fur.

The boy was fast asleep before the lynx could even settle in beside him.